Warner Music Group has been revived Disc store detection returned to New York last weekend after a five-year absence, with a bus full of music and vinyl fans — including Advertising sign'small Retail track — who kicked things off at the Tower Records venue at Tower Labs in Brooklyn with a mind-blowing performance by Entertainment Quarters of Change's 300 artists.
The bus crawl, carrying about 40 music fans, visited Academy Records in Brooklyn, the Audio-Technica showroom in lower Manhattan, Generation Records in the West Village. and finally, Rough Trade Records at Rockefeller Center, all on Saturday (May 18).
Upcoming crawls are scheduled in Seattle on June 14th. Austin on July 20. Nashville on August 10th. Chicago on September 28. and Los Angeles on October 19. tickets for each crawl cost $77.45. Just like the New York Crawl, these cities will likely have an artist show, and so far, Joe P is lined up for those in Seattle and Austin. Knox for the one in Nashville; Deux Visages for Chicago; and Alicia Creti for Los Angeles.
Additionally, vinyl and music fans can visit the Record Store Crawl website to vote on which US city will be the winner of a crawl scheduled for September 7th. All scans are sponsored in partnership with Audio-Technica and HeadCount. When fans vote for the WMG Record Store Crawl Website for which city should receive the September probe, the site asks if the voter is registered to vote in the US election. If they aren't, or just aren't sure, a link takes them to the headcount.org website where they can either check their status or register to vote.
The last time WMG had a Record Store crawl was a year before the COVID-19 shutdown. Before the pandemic, the then-named WEA (now WMX) held 40 Crawls in cities across the United States from 2016 to 2019, according to WMX's senior director of retail and platform marketing (RPM). Gina Williams. In New York, they were mostly held on Record Store Day. Today, however, record stores have a lot going on that day, Williams said, so the WMG team chose other days to boost in-store traffic.
While the Record Store Day Crawl was taking place in New York, WMX's RPM team hosted approximately 165 early listening events for Twenty One Pilots' new album, Clancy, out now on Fueled By Ramen. According to a statement released by the label, “Thousands of fans across the country packed into their local record stores to hear the album early, connect with other fans and experience what independent record stores are all about: community and love of music. In addition, the previous year in 2023, the RPM team hosted 972 indie listening store activations in 2023 for 12 releases. RPM Group and Atlantic Records were nominated for the 2024 Music Biz Bizzy for Barbie, The album listening events.
In New York, Record Store Crawl fans lined up outside the Tower venue in Williamsburg at noon to get a bag from the Warner family of labels. The Retail Track bag contained Keith Sweat Make it last forever limited edition black ice vinyl album and a “Brother” 45 by Needtobreathe, plus stickers and other trinkets. as well as a lottery ticket, which would be very useful on the bus ride between stops on the crawl.
Inside the Tower, the crawlers were treated to a high-energy seven-song set from Quarters of Change, who performed tracks from their debut album, Inside the Riftand the just-released sequel, Portraits.
Quarters of Change appear at Tower Records' Tower Labs venue in Brooklyn on May 18th.
Rita Vega
After the band's set, the tour loaded onto the bus and headed to the next stop: the Academy Records Annex in Greenpoint, where Retail Track scored a couple of singles: OV Wright's “Precious Precious” on Hi Records; “I Wantcha Baby” by Arthur Prysock, in Hi Weiss' Old Town Records? and Shirley Brown's 'Woman To Woman' on Truth Records.
After that, the bus headed into Manhattan across the Williamsburg Bridge and the mother of all traffic jams, literally moving one inch at a time. This led to many opportunities for WMX's senior RPM manager Ross Sronto to show off his emcee prowess, while being in charge of creative WMX RPM Eden Mile provided nice embellishments to her role as ace ticket number reader as the duo raffled off plenty of Record Store Day exclusives and other limited edition and/or deluxe vinyl records — all from the Warner Music family of labels, of course. During this drive, Han Mu, one of the scouts, said he heard about the Record Store Crawl through an Instagram post. He also welcomed the crawl's pricing, saying: “It's totally worth it.”
In Manhattan, the first stop was at Audio-Technica House, the audio gear brand's SoHo co-working space, where crawlers were treated to Banshee Winery wines and a music trivia game with the winner getting a record player. The rest of the scouts got an Audio-Technica disc cleaning kit.
Then a quick stroll over to Generation Records, where crawlers had the pleasure of flipping through the stacks while dining on Williamsburg Pizza. Retail Track went downstairs and scored 10 vinyl albums, including those by The Association, Dakota Staton, Gene Pitney, Jimmy Ruffin, Joan Armatrading and Renaissance — the latter on Warner Bros. Records.
The Record Store Crawl itself wasn't the only attraction, as Hannah Tebo bought a ticket specifically to see Quarters of Change perform, as did Ellen Cainsford, who flew in from Austin because she said she wanted to “see the band in a special venue for an intimate show.” In addition to her, two others traveled from North Carolina for the Record Store Crawl, while two more music fans came from Philadelphia, WMX RPM manager Mel Hoch reported on Retail Track.
Finally, the day culminated in Rough Trade where the Retail Track marked Quarters of Change's Portrait LP. “It was great to have a busload of eager record fans of all ages pop by and take over our store for a while,” store manager George Flanagan says Advertising sign. “It was already a really good day and then the music lovers from the bus provided a nice peak. We sold a lot of music.”
Like last month's Record Store Day, Retail Track once again sounded the siren call (this time) of a cold Budweiser, which was easily scored around the corner from Rough Trade at the Pig & Whistle pub. After all, the Retail Track needed something to wash away the taste of wine from behind the Audio-Technica House.
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